


A BRIEF HISTORY OF TEMPEST, Volume XXIV, Section XI: Aethelstan's War

by vercinjetorix



Category: Brighthearth, Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work, The KBCU (Kris Brain Cinematic Universe)
Genre: F/F, F/M, aethelstan is also still clinging to that shred of sanity in his single braincell, anyashka is still hinged and sober, god love him, pre-canon obviously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:33:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26359534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vercinjetorix/pseuds/vercinjetorix
Summary: Before Anyashka the Usurper, there was Aethelstan the Warrior.
Relationships: Lyra Aerin/Aethelstan Blackwood, Lyra Aerin/Anyashka Blackwood, tagging them both simultaneously feels HORRIBLE
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	1. I.

“This is a bad plan,” Anyashka says.

The generals’ heads lift in unison … save for one. At the end of the table, Aethelstan Blackwood -- a tall, proud boy of seventeen with fierce dark eyes and an apparent talent for warfare -- remains captured by the map spread, his fingers twined together and pressed pensively against his chin.

A throat clears. “Lady Anyashka,” says Adrik Aerin, lord of the Storm Peaks. “With respect, of course -- you have only seen one battle. You do not understand -- “

“Redwyne _wants_ us to march on Eastkeep. His archers are good -- they will pick us off in the mountains if we come from the northwest.” Anyashka turns to her brother once more. “This is a bad plan,” she says again, demanding his attention.

With the slow rise of his gaze, Aethelstan has given it. She feels the weight of it like a stone in her belly. Had he looked this much a man before the Redwynes had taken their home? _A king,_ a small part of her whispers, the last of the girl that had not died with their father. 

“Alright,” he starts. “So what is yours?”

She exhales through her nose, lips pursed as she examines the map. It’s with an unusual hesitance that she taps the table with her pointer finger. “ … We could take Greengrave.”

The room falls silent as the generals turn to their commander, who breathes a weary sigh before he speaks. “No. This is our last chance to take Eastkeep back before winter comes.”

“Is it?” She reaches across the war table for the largest piece -- a tall, black-leaved tree, her family's sigil -- and slowly drags it to rest on the coast. “If we take Greengrave, we take all of its ships.” She points to the sharp curve of the bay. “Then Whiteport. We’ll seize all imports from the Capital while the sea freezes.”

Aethelstan raises a brow. “And Eastkeep?”

“Will starve. By the time we arrive, Redwyne’s troops will be freezing and exhausted, if he doesn't surrender first.”

“Marching to the Keep from Whiteport would mean travelling the Houndpass, my lady,” says the lord of Farmire, a spindly man with the strategic prowess of a housefly. “In the dead of winter.”

Anyashka grits her teeth so she does not roll her eyes. “Thank you, Lord Carpenter, but I understand how the seasons work.”

“I --”

“ _Kasha_.” The use of her childhood nickname strikes her somewhere hidden, somewhere still bleeding. When she looks to her brother again, she does not see the battle hardened man he is becoming; only a terrified, desperate boy. Still, the deep timbre of Aethelstan’s voice commands the space, even lowered like this. “Do you truly think this is the best way?”

Several generals inhale in unison, as if to voice their distaste -- Aethelstan silences them all with the raise of a gloved hand. Anyashka drops her gaze to the map, purses her lips as she thinks over it again, and sighs. “I think it is the only way.”

Aethelstan turns to Adrik. “How many ships do you have here?”

Adrik looks shocked before he gathers himself. “Fifty, my lord.”

“Good. That will be enough.” His dark eyes find his sister’s identical ones above the candlelight. “You will lead the attack from the sea. While Redwyne’s troops are scattered, my men will attack the castle.”

Anyashka’s mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. “I -- _me?_ ”

“This was your plan. It will be your victory.” He nods once, resolute. “Adrik, can we prepare to leave by dawn?” 

“ … Yes, my lord.”

“It’s settled, then.” And with that he stands, the generals following suit.

Anyashka Blackwood -- a tall, proud girl of seventeen with fierce dark eyes and an apparent talent for warfare -- is left alone at the war table, wondering what exactly it is she’s done.

* * *

As a child, Lyra Aerin had often been Anyashka’s only escape from the hum-drum of her father’s appointments. On her trips to the Storm Peaks, she would be forced to sit through all of the boring talk of trade, of coin, of rationing; but Lyra had always known the best places to hide along the cavernous beaches, had the best bows for practice, had the best swords for sparring. 

Little Kasha craved the exciting lives of her ancestors; like Adarion the Strong, who had fought for Eomyr to unite the wild north. Mikhail Blackwood was no Adarion the Strong. If her father would be remembered, Anyashka thought, he would be remembered gently -- and he _would_ be remembered. _For his death, if nothing else._

When Aethelstan and Anyashka arrived at the Storm Peaks again, it had been four years since Lyra last saw her. Kasha’s feet were bloody as she stepped barefoot on the rocky shore, still in her nightclothes from the night she fled -- a lanky, terrified thing.

“You are very tall now,” Lyra said, not quite knowing where to start.

Anyashka swallowed a sob, her knotted black hair blowing wildly in the salty wind. “Not much taller than you.”

And then she had fallen to her knees, finally slowed enough to succumb to her grief, her sobs drowned out by the crashing waves.

Now, it has been six months since their reunion. Little Kasha is not so little anymore; her skinny arms have quickly begun filling out her armor, her jaw sharper, her voice harder. Lyra looks up at her thoughtfully, her golden hair pulled back from her face in tight braids. “So … should I call you _General Blackwood_ now?”

Kasha snorts, arms crossed over her chest as she watches the chaos of ships loading. “You are very funny.”

“Mmm. And you are very nervous.”

Kasha shrugs. “I don’t like the sea. It’s unpredictable.”

“It was a good idea,” Lyra continues, having a conversation Anyashka is not. “To capture Greengrave now. Aethelstan was right to let you lead.”

And, just as Lyra had anticipated, Kasha bites. She turns her face away, lips pressed firmly shut until she looks forward again. “I have fought one battle, Lyra, and now there are two-thousand men following me into my second.”

“Two thousand men who are prepared to die for your home. For your father.”

“My father is already dead.” For the first time, Kasha looks at her, black eyes somehow neutral. Cold, like the deadly winter they were both born in. “His corpse does not require company.”

* * *

The sands of Greengrave are black as night. Even at high noon, the clouds blanket the sharp obsidian cliffs in a shadow that rivals nightfall; in the distance, thunder rumbles. The ground crunches under Anyashka’s feet as she steps first from the ship, and she exhales a breath she didn’t know she was holding. 

As she looks to the castle on the horizon, she cannot help but wonder how many children were pulled from their beds.

Her reverie is broken by the sudden splash of men jumping from the ships. One screams her name and, as she turns, she is struck firmly by an arrow to the shoulder.

The world slows. She does not hear the ensuing roar as her men are pummeled by archers from above -- only the echo of the arrow’s thud through her armor, now ringing in her ears. Blood pours down the steel of her breastplate and, as she stares, she realizes the razor tip has gone _through_ her, now protruding from her shoulder blade.

Another whizzes past her temple, lodging firmly in another man’s forehead, and his corpse slumps to her feet. 

Her mouth falls open, a trembling hand pressed to her wound as if to hold it together. _I am only a girl,_ she thinks, her wide-eyed gaze darting wildly between the identical cliffs. _I am only a girl. I am only a girl. We are all going to die here, and I am only a girl._

A woman collapses at her flank, and Anyashka snaps to attention. Whoever she had been before -- _Little_ _Kasha_ , _Anushkaya_ , _Anya’chik_ \-- does not belong here. She does not belong anywhere anymore.

With a cry of pure, unadulterated rage, she grips the arrow’s shaft, snaps it in her fist -- leaving only the exiting half. When she draws her greatsword, she finds that it is too heavy to grip with her bad arm, though it still does not hurt. And so she takes the full weight in her left hand, grits her teeth, and presses forward into the narrow uphill valley between cliffs. 

It is a death funnel. In the mere minutes since their arrival, the ground has grown littered with bodies, leaving little choice but to walk over them. The smell is unbearable -- the screams are worse. With mild shock she realizes the men at her side have lifted their shields to cover her head, protecting her from the arrows still raining down upon them.

 _Lyra was wrong,_ is all she thinks as she watches them, hears the dull call of her name as if from underwater. _They are not prepared to die for my father. They are prepared to die for me._

It is in this moment that Anyashka Blackwood decides unequivocally that she will not die.

She hears Redwyne’s men before she sees them; the second onslaught has begun pushing through the opposite end. They're scattered, cocky -- just as Aethelstan had hoped. The first man to reach her is foolish; as their swords meet, she lands a hard kick to his chest and skewers him one-handed. When the man to her left swings at a Redwyne soldier, the steel of his blade cuts clean through the wooden handle of his axe. Another: the woman to her right drives hard and fast into a soldier’s stomach, impaling another as she goes, their blood and entrails spewing at her feet.

They press forward, corpses piling higher until it is a ankle deep sea of them, though now they are mostly Redwynes. She expects to take pleasure in it, in justice -- but feels nothing but a terrible, angry hollowness.

By the time they have reached the clearing that puts them on equal ground, she estimates only half of her men have survived. Less than that, she decides as she looks back over her shoulder, her face covered in blood and dirt and tears she did not know she was crying. _Far less_. 

At close range, the arrows lodge in the shield still held in front of her face. But the archers are even less equipped to handle combat than the cavalry had been; the surviving Blackwood troops turn it into a slaughterhouse. “I yield,” the last one says, dropping his bow as his knees buckle. The tip of Anyashka’s sword lingers only a breath from his neck. “Please, please -- I yield!”

A girl in her rises -- a girl in her dies. With a controlled rage she still does not recognize in herself, she drives her steel into his throat and does not stop until his eyes fall dim, his last breath a gurgle around the blood pouring from his mouth.

From the hill to the east: the thunder of hoofbeats. She pulls her sword back with a grunt, sending the archer’s body plummeting to the rocks below, and turns to see her sigil waving from the castle’s spire. At the front of the coming hoard is her brother, triumphant atop his pale horse -- and, behind him, she faintly recognizes Lyra’s intricate, gilded braids.

“We won,” she breathes -- and then drops to the dewy grass, black spots flooding her vision. _Bloody_ , she realizes, and it’s enough to make her laugh in sudden delirium. _The grass is bloody, not dewy. My blood?_

Her heartbeat pounds in her ears, too fast, and she succumbs to the darkness.

* * *

Anyashka rarely dreams. She is not sure that she is dreaming now; perhaps she is finally awake, and the rest had been a nightmare. When she opens her eyes, she is somewhere deep in the labyrinthine corridors of Eastkeep, lit only by the orange glow of torches. She is small, she realizes as she looks down at her chicken legs, the dress that swallows her.

From behind her: footsteps. She spins on her heel to watch the shadow of her father turn the corner, his cane clacking softly as he goes. “Papa?” she calls as she follows; but his figure dims, and she is left staring down another endless hallway.

“ _Kaaaaaasha!_ ” Her brother’s voice echoes down the hall and back again, and she recognizes this game immediately. She sprints as fast as her legs will carry her, giggling, her black hair trailing behind her in half-ruined braids. There is only one way to win the game: do not get caught. She had never been particularly good, but she was faster than Aethelstan and the steward boys, could fit into the smallest hiding places.

The torches are extinguished at once by a sudden gust of wind. _Wind?_ From the end of the adjacent tunnel, she sees a wooden door swing open to reveal grey skies over the choppy Northern Sea, the stone floor suddenly ending in pebbled sand. The Storm Peaks, she realizes; and, in her childish delusion, it makes all the sense in the world.

“ _Anyashka?_ ” Aethelstan calls again, though he sounds frightened where he had been teasing before. She hesitates, looks over her shoulder -- and decides it must be a trick. It would not be the first time he has scared her into giving herself away.

As she steps through the door, lightning crackles on the horizon; she is suddenly gripped by her hair. With agonizing slowness, the steel of a greatsword pierces her back, pushes until she can _see_ it protruding from her stomach. 

“Kasha, _Kasha_ ,” Lyra whispers, suddenly at her side, gazing down at her with solemn green eyes. “What have you done?”

Anyashka drowns in her own blood on the grey sand, cast in her brother’s shadow.


	2. II.

“ _ Kasha.” _

Her eyes flutter open. First, she only sees the white linen of the tent, illuminated by sunlight.

“Can you hear me?” Lyra asks, more urgent this time, and Anyashka groans. Lyra exhales a sigh of relief, turns to the guard by the tent’s opening. “Find Aethelstan. Tell him she’s awake.” 

The guard nods once before exiting. Lyra presses a wet cloth to her cheek with a tenderness that feels foreign to them both, hinging on the verge of uncomfortable.  _ She is trying very hard _ , Anyashka thinks.  _ Why? _

“He did not leave your side all night,” Lyra murmurs, clumsily brushing Anyashka’s hair back from her forehead; she does not know if she has ever seen Lyra do anything clumsily before. “I took his place so he could eat breakfast. He won’t be far.”

She nods, reaches for her bandaged shoulder, and huffs when Lyra catches her wrist. “How bad is it?”

Lyra shakes her head. “It’s not terrible. Very ugly, but not terrible.”

“So … I’ll be able to swing a sword again?”

“ _ Ha! _ As if a bad arm would stop you.” She smiles. “I heard you led the charge one-handed.”

Kasha snorts. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“But you did.” Lyra squeezes her wrist, becomes suddenly stern before she lets it go. “You did, Anya’chik.”

Kasha opens her mouth, but is silenced as Aethelstan ducks into the small space. He does not smile -- he so rarely does, anymore -- but relief is plain in every line of his face. Relief, pride and, beneath it all: anguish. He nods once at Lyra, who stands, offering Anyashka a lingering look as she steps into the daylight.

Aethelstan sinks to one knee at her bedside, his eyes dropping to her bandaged shoulder. “Can I take a look?”

She nods, sits up -- and feels the breath leave her lungs as the pain flares. “No,” he says, urging her back down with a gentle press to her arm. As she settles back, he unwraps the gauze -- and exhales softly when he sees the gaping wound, still oozing blood and pus. “Oh,  _ Anushkaya _ .”

She attempts a smile, though it’s more of a grimace. “Lyra said it was ugly.”

“Lyra was being polite.” He raises his eyebrows. “How do you feel?”

_ Dead. Like the men I crushed under my feet. Like the Redwyne boy I slew in spite of his surrender. _ “Fine.”

“Fine,” Aethelstan repeats, and sighs deeply as he covers her shoulder with a fresh bandage. “You nearly died.”

She winces at the pressure. “Only nearly.”

He sits back, eyes somber. “It was a mistake to let you lead the charge.”

“ _ A mistake? _ ” Anya tries to sit up, but is stopped by his hand again. “ _ I _ won Greengrave! Not you, or Adrik Aerin --  _ I did _ . You should be thanking m --”

“Thank you.” His grip on her good shoulder is firm, supportive, and the way he looks down at her is ... paternal.  _ Wrong _ \-- like looking to her father and seeing a sword in his gnarled, tremoring hands. “Thank you, Anyashka.”

He is genuine -- he is  _ always _ genuine, even when it’s painful, even when it’s foolish. She grits her teeth, refuses to soften as she imagines he expects. “You cannot stop me from fighting. This is my war, too.”

Aethelstan takes a deep, steadying breath as he releases her. “How many Blackwoods are left?”

“I don’t understand h --”

_ “How many?” _

She swallows. “ … Two.”

“And if we both die in the field, who will be left to take Eastkeep from Robert Redwyne?”

The ensuing silence is cold and terrible. Anyashka drops her eyes, folds her hands in her lap, and does not speak for a very long time. The unsaid truth hangs heavy in the air:  _ he was my father as much as he was yours _ .

“Then I suppose it is very simple,” she finally says, fiercely resolute in her decision, gaze lifting to meet his once more. “We cannot die.”

When Aethelstan searches his sister’s face, he finds none of the girl he had known before. Little Kasha had always needed his protection from the jealous older girls, from the squire boys who beat her into the dirt; she had never learned how to turn away from a fight, how to hold her tongue in the face of danger.  _ It makes me strong, _ she had once told him with a mouthful of blood, her front teeth knocked clean from her gums.  _ Someday, I will be stronger than all of them _ .

“I suppose it is,” he says, and takes her hand in his.

* * *

Lyra Aerin had been very young when she was betrothed to Aethelstan Blackwood. 

The news came as no surprise -- even still, she was the envy of every girl in the Storm Peaks, she imagined. Beneath the cover of nightfall and the crashing of waves, her friends would fawn over his eyes shrouded in thick lashes, his sharp cheekbones, the serious set of his jaw. Strategically, she knew it had been wise for Adrik Aerin to pledge his daughter to the Blackwood heir. And who could have imagined a more perfect match? Aethelstan, with his broad, strong shoulders; and Lyra, small and lithe at his arm, as poised as she was fierce. The sun to his moon.

“Why don’t I love him yet?” Lyra had asked once as she crawled into bed, her brows drawn up over her deep green eyes.

“You will grow to love him,” her mother had crooned. “I did not love your father in the beginning -- now, I could never love another. True love is grown, not born, and you are still very young.”

Lyra would nod and wonder what, then, it was she felt for Aethelstan’s sister.

* * *

“Are you going to allow her to fight again?” Lyra asks as Aethelstan exits the tent.

He huffs, already annoyed, and continues his march forward into the camp. “I don’t know yet.”

“You don’t  _ know? _ ” To match his pace, Lyra must take three steps for each one of his -- but she will not be left unheard. “She almost got herself --”

“Killed.” He still does not look at her. “Have you come to tell me the color of the sky, too?”

“She thinks she’s ready to charge into battle again. You can’t let her.”

Aethelstan laughs once, cold and humorless. “In all the time we’ve known each other, you still think I can control when my sister fights?”

“In all the time we’ve known each other, you haven’t been leading thousands of northmen into war.” She darts in front of him, bringing his pace to a sudden halt, and ignores the frustration building in his eyes. “This isn’t a game, Aelya.”

“A  _ game? _ ” His voice lowers and, somehow, it’s more threatening than if he had raised it. “Robert Redwyne slew my father like an animal. He took my home --  _ Kasha’s _ home! -- and if we don’t win it back, our house will be dead. Do you think  _ anything _ could stop her from fighting?”

“Yes,” she replies simply.

Aethelstan looks taken aback. “Then why didn’t you lead with that?”

“You weren’t asking the right questions.” Lyra returns to his side, slips her arm through his, and continues their walk through the camp at a more leisurely pace. “If you had, I would have told you that Robert Redwyne is sending his best diplomats to the Capital to enlist southern support. If he gets as much as he’s sending for … we could be in trouble.”

Aethelstan clenches his hand into a fist, tensing the arm she holds. “A southern army would stand no chance against my men.”

“In the winter? No. But when spring comes … it would be wise to be safe. And if you’ll allow my leave by the end of the week, I can get there first.”

“And this prevents Kasha from fighting because …? “

“It would be unwise to travel the road alone with winter approaching. The cold turns men to beasts, and beasts to monsters; I would feel safer if Kasha accompanied me.” When he looks dumbly down at her in response, she huffs, lowers her voice before spelling out her true intentions. “My father has many friends in the south. She’ll be able to heal there.”

The Blackwoods have long been known for an obsession with honor. Aethelstan Blackwood is a man lost in it, his sister trailing closely in his shadow, both of them too callous to understand their own nature until it kills them. If the cold would make beasts of men, honor would make corpses; Lyra is watching it strangle the boy by the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders now.  _ If you are going to tie your noose _ , she thinks as she stares into his tumultuous dark eyes,  _ do not tie your sister’s, too. _

“I’m going to be your wife,” she adds, even softer now. “Can’t you  _ try _ to trust me?”

At this, Aethelstan exhales, his gaze warmer as it meets hers. She wonders, fleetingly, if he loves her -- and then wonders if she can learn to love him if he does.

“I trust you with my life.” He leans down slowly and, just as Lyra is certain he will kiss her, he stops short -- only a whisper from her lips. “I don't trust anyone with Kasha’s.”

As she watches his ghost disappear into the camp’s functional chaos, still fuming in the echo of rejection, Lyra believes she has found the answer.


End file.
